Bottom Feeder Mods – Do You Even Squonk?

Dripping is a phenomenon that has existed throughout most of the history of vaping. Early on, people realized that if you remove the tank or cartridge from the equation and drip e-liquid directly on the atomizer coil before vaping, you’ll get better airflow, purer flavor and more vapor.

Dripping does have a serious drawback, though: You need to carry a bottle of e-liquid everywhere because an atomizer without a tank doesn’t stay wet for long. Dripping doesn’t work when you only have one hand free. You can’t do it while driving. If you use too little e-liquid, you’ll get a dry hit. If you use too much, your atomizer will leak.

With all its problems, dripping definitely isn’t for everyone. Although the experience of vaping is very good when you drip, many people find it far too inconvenient.

So, what is squonking?

Bottom feeder mods – also called “squonk mods” or “squonk boxes” – have emerged as an alternative that provides the same performance as dripping while eliminating several of the drawbacks. If you’re curious about the bottom feeders that have popped up at your favorite online and local vape shops recently, pull up a chair. You’re about to learn why squonk mods are all the rage.

What Are Squonk Mods?

A squonk mod is a box mod with a built-in e-liquid bottle positioned next to the battery. The bottle typically holds at least 7 ml of e-liquid, and it’s made from a soft plastic that’s easy to squeeze. A tube travels through a special hollow center pin to connect the bottle to the bottom of the atomizer.

Although squonk mods often include their own atomizers, it is possible to adapt most atomizers for squonking by replacing the solid center pin with a hollow one. Squeezing the bottle in a squonk mod forces e-liquid through the tube and wets the atomizer, eliminating the need to drip.

Bottom feeder mods are not new. Like many other developments in the vaping industry, the bottom feeding mod was an invention of some industrious e-cigarette users who built their own devices because they weren’t happy with any existing products. Although squonk mods have been around for some time, companies only recently began to latch on to them as viable commercial products.

So, What Does the Term “Squonk” Mean?

It refers to the noise that the e-liquid makes when you squeeze the bottle. The earliest known usage of the term occurred in a 2010 post by e-cigarette-forum member Jack Murray. The term caught on, and today it’s the word that vapers around the world use to describe bottom feeding mods.

What Are the Benefits of Squonk Mods?

1. Bottom Feeder Mods Eliminate the Need to Drip

A squonk box is the only type of vaping device that combines the vapor production of an RDA with the storage capacity of a tank. Although many e-cigarette tanks provide performance approaching that of an RDA, a tank always forces to you compromise by restricting your airflow or buying expensive pre-made coils.

A squonk box also eliminates the primary drawback of RDAs – the need to drip constantly – by feeding the atomizer from the bottom. A gentle squeeze adds e-liquid so you can continue vaping.

3. Bottom Feeders Provide All-Day E-Liquid Storage

Are you a heavy vaper? You probably find that even the largest tanks don’t provide enough e-liquid storage for all-day vaping.

Dripping is even worse for frequent vapers because you can’t get more than a few puffs out of an RDA before you need to drip again.
The largest e-cigarette tanks provide up to about 5 ml of e-liquid storage – but even that pales in comparison to the storage you’ll get with a bottom feeding mod.

A squonk box typically provides 7 ml or more of e-liquid storage. Some squonk bottles are as large as 30 ml!

Concerned about the safety of storing your e-liquid in plastic bottles? Don’t be. Food-safe silicone bottles are available for most squonk boxes. No matter how much e-liquid you use, you’ll have no trouble finding a squonk box with a bottle that you only need to fill once per day.

3. Bottom Feeders Are Less Likely to Leak

One of the biggest problems with dripping is that it can be difficult to know whether you’re adding the right amount of e-liquid unless you constantly remove the cap to look at the wick. If you add too much e-liquid when dripping, you’ll end up with e-liquid on your hands and clothes.

A squonk box helps to eliminate over-dripping because when you release the bottle, the vacuum pulls excess e-liquid out of the atomizer. Bottom feeder mods do such a good job of eliminating leaking that they often include RDAs with flat bottoms rather than drip wells.

What Are the Drawbacks of Squonk Mods?

1. Bottom Feeders Dedicate You to One Flavor Unless You Have Spare Bottles

E-liquid is expensive. If you’re going to fill a 30 ml squonk bottle with e-liquid, you’d better like that e-liquid’s flavor. With an RDA, you’re free to switch e-liquid flavors every few puffs if you like.

With a squonk box, though, you’re essentially stuck with one flavor until you finish the bottle. You can buy extra bottles and fill them with different flavors, but changing the bottle in a squonk mod isn’t as trivial as changing your e-liquid when dripping. Squonk mods are best for people who don’t change flavors frequently.

2. Most Bottom Feeders Have No Safety Features

As bottom feeder mods become more popular, more vaping companies will release regulated squonk boxes with features such as short circuit protection, adjustable wattage and temperature control.

Today, though, most bottom feeders are mechanical mods. They don’t protect you from short circuits, overheating, over-current conditions or reverse battery installation. If you want to use a mechanical mod, you need to understand the principles of battery safety.

Although they are rare, terrible accidents have happened due to the misuse of mechanical mods. If you don’t understand – or prefer not to learn – battery safety, regulated squonk mods are available. For now, though, there aren’t many choices.

3. Some Bottom Feeders Have Poor Battery Life

A typical squonk mod is about as large and heavy as a traditional dual-battery box mod, but it only has one battery. The squonk bottle consumes the rest of the space inside the mod.

Although you’ll gain the convenience of internal e-liquid storage with a single-battery squonk mod, you’ll also have a larger mod without a corresponding increase in battery life or wattage range. If you require better battery life or a wider wattage range, two-battery squonk mods are available – but they’re about the same size as three-battery box mods without squonk bottles.

Either way, switching to a bottom feeding mod requires compromises in battery life and wattage range compared to a traditional mod.

4. Some Cheap Bottom Feeders May Have Poor Conductivity

Great electrical conductivity is one of the benefits of tube-shaped mechanical mods. Plates or pins – usually made from copper – connect firmly to the top and bottom of the battery. Power from the battery has nowhere to go except directly to the atomizer.

A squonk mod has a different design in that a wire usually connects the fire button to the battery. Another wire usually connects the battery to the atomizer threading. Since power travels a greater distance, it’s important for the wires and other connections in a bottom feeding mod to be of the highest quality possible.

Loss of power due to low-quality connections is a problem that plagues inexpensive squonk mods. Investigate the design of any squonk mod carefully before buying it.

About the Author
Rune Stulen is the owner of www.friskedrag.no. Stulen is a long-term e-cigarette user whose passion for the vaping hobby drove him to build a company that supplies his fellow Norwegians with affordable and high-quality e-cigarettes. Stulen continues to work tirelessly to advance the vaping industry in Norway.

2 thoughts on “Bottom Feeder Mods – Do You Even Squonk?”

I heard some of my friends talking about squonk boxes, but I didn’t know what they were. I’ve been considering getting into vaping soon, and the fact that it has the storage capacity of a tank while also having the same vapor production of an RDA makes it sound like a squonk is the way for me to go. 30 ml is a lot of storage space, and I’ll be sure to look for food-safe silicone bottles, as you suggest.